


a harrier in the wind

by florieneofthesea



Series: this world we set on fire [4]
Category: Storm Hawks (Cartoon)
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Introspection, Politics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-16
Updated: 2020-11-16
Packaged: 2021-03-10 01:40:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,239
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27595615
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/florieneofthesea/pseuds/florieneofthesea
Summary: Harrier doesn’t like to admit he’s wrong. He doesn’t like having to admit anything at all really because it makes him seem unconfident and skies above forbid he ever come off as unconfident. Only the naïve and inexperienced were like that, and Harrier likes to think he’s neither.
Series: this world we set on fire [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1963522
Kudos: 4





	a harrier in the wind

**Author's Note:**

> I'm back with the sort of but not really disconnected short snippets on the Storm Hawks. I realise I have a thing for trying to flesh out side characters, especially in the Storm Hawks, I feel like they have so much going on and so much potential and I really wished we could see some of that in the actual show, but for now I'll just try to fill in some of the gaps myself.

Harrier doesn’t like to admit he’s wrong. He doesn’t like having to admit anything at all really because it makes him seem unconfident and skies above forbid he ever come off as unconfident. Only the naïve and inexperienced were like that, and Harrier likes to think he’s neither. 

He dismisses two trainee Guardians and makes the journey to the Council of the Sky alone. Atmosia is thriving as it always is with its large white-stone pavements, matching buildings, the homes and the stores and and the sprawling, open air market. Lush greenery peak in and out of the corners and there’s a permanent sweet smell in the air. He knows as he walks past children giggling and adults gossiping, that this is a honeyed trap many would kill to fall into. And it’s one that he’s believed in for so long.

But standing at the steps of the Council of the Sky, Harrier knows which way the wind is blowing. Attendants open the heavy double doors for him and he passes into the marble palace and makes his way through it to the meeting chambers.

The Sky Knight Council had dwindled in size over the last few years, and some of these seats have been empty for a long time. With good reason, he reminds himself, as he passes a seat reserved for the Rebel Ducks of Gale. As strange and childish they seemed, they held the Northern front for years before being overwhelmed after the Battle to End All Battles. He takes his seat, without the shadows of his teammates hovering about. 

The session begins as the old administrator bangs his hammer, adorned with silver and gold, and the Council explodes in talk. The noise is so loud despite the gaps in the seats. He sees the pocket left for Terra Borealis deserted, and the single, wooden chair set aside for Starling equally bare. But what catches his eye isn’t the lack of people in assigned seating. Instead it’s the presence of one in a seat that has been empty for almost over a decade. 

Harrier scrutinises Carver’s position, diagonally across and settling comfortably into the cushioned seats of the original Storm Hawks. The old administrator moved to tap his hammer but the Red Eagles Captain does the honours instead, slamming his burning sword into the table in front and bringing a hushed silence. How crude, uncivilised. 

There are some things he does admit, to himself mostly, at certain times. For starters, he knows he’s not really made for the Sky Knight business. It takes a certain kind of stupidity to want to fight on the frontlines, and he doesn’t have that death-seeking bone in his body. Harrier has a hunger for order, control, and while none of the unpredictability that comes in battle or war appeals to him, the chaos in politics, the economics, that is something he knows how to bend and break. So sometimes, he admits he’s lucky that Terra Rex is deep in Southern Atmosia territory, far from the active zones in the Graves’ Strip and far from the reddening Cyclonian skies. He admits that warmer climates and an abundance of natural bronze has contributed to their wealth and popularity, and that their place in the history books as the birthplace of flight is no small mile either. He also admits that he’s lucky his mother was governess rather than his father, and that he’d inherited her risk-averse nature. If otherwise, Terra Rex would be none of its golden glory today.

It makes him wonder how these skinny ghosts surviving off war soiled lands can still muster the strength to even stand - and admittedly, even that is to give them too little credit. They do far more than just pull themselves upright, they push boundaries, encroaching into uncomfortable territory for the complacent, complicit Atmosia. A new record is set as they claw upwards from the Wastelands to trace the edge of the stratosphere and demand change. Because that’s Harrier feels in the wind when he stands at the bow of his ship, when he takes his skimmer on patrol, when he arrived on Atmosia: change.

Harrier allows himself to somewhat admire what that one group of children has managed to make out of scrap metal abandoned in the Wastelands. In all the ten years since that battle, no one had found the Condor, and yet here it was, bright and sharp, bearing scars from a time past but never once failing it's new inhabitants. It's undergone changes, to what he remembers, some strange modifications here and there, the odd, menial, ridiculous trap, or ugly cosmetic. It's inhabitants are by far the thing that sticks out the most. He remembers the old Storm Hawks as respectful, if not eccentric in their own ways at times. But Lightning Strike was never this defiant of Atmosia, never this critical. He was the model citizen, loyal, confident, patriotic.

The Condor's new Sky Knight has no such reverence. And as far as he's concerned, he's not even part of the same circle as Atmosia, as the rest of the Southern Atmos. Despite the rumours of his heritage, he says he was born in the Graves Strip, he grew up there, he made a living there. There's not a single part of him that belongs to Atmosia beyond their claims of his blood being tied to a legacy that had lost. Harrier can respect the defiance to a certain extent. It takes steel to go against the wind. But he doesn't condone anything beyond that. They're still troublemakers, disregarding the common law, getting involved with Starling and her many unauthorised missions - which was always a headache to deal with - and because they never seem to want to conform, Atmosia breaths down his neck. As if he could convince them to join Atmosia in an official capacity. These elders are ageing poorly, he really hopes some of them retire. 

Harrier doesn't like the Storm Hawks. They introduce chaos into the order he's so carefully built and it's all so exasperating, but he knows which way the wind is blowing. And as much as he'll never openly support them, never openly endorse them, they're heading in the right direction. He huffs a little as someone raises a question that prompts explosive debate, hands bang against the table and shouts cross the room. Really, who's the child in this instance? He can almost forgive Starling's proclivity to skipping every meeting and wrangling the scribe's later for the meeting notes. Almost.

Harrier taps his crystal wineglass in three measured beats, the silver spoon makes a delightful clear ring against glass, sharp enough to cut through pointless chatter. The room slowly dies into silence and annoyingly, Carver’s obnoxious voice is the last to fall, some stupid, ill-thought plan still hanging in the air. Harrier clears his throat as he rises, and his line of sight dips automatically to his old friend’s line of seats, and the image of the flowering graves springs into his mind - cold square slabs of stone buried into the earth like giant’s teeth, and by them a singular circular shield, shimmering like like a jewel. 

Harrier would never say that he’s wrong. He’d never hear the end of it for one, and for another he has a politician’s blood in him, he’s never wrong, simply at a different solution. 

So he does what he does best, according to Starling, he talks.

**Author's Note:**

> I imagine that given how respected Terra Rex is, Harrier himself is pretty well respected (despite how goofy the show portrays him sometimes), in my head he's competent for sure, but probably not the best fighter. I think Terra Rex is located somewhere far from the frontlines and from the war, and came out relatively unscathed, and so most of their people go and get a formal education and frequently travel to Atmosia for said education and learning, and so he's a lot more well versed in the finer side of things i.e. debate, politics, economics - I think he would shine here the most.
> 
> This little fic is just me trying to categorise Harrier's thoughts on the Storm Hawks, and what they're doing. I think his initial dismissiveness is because he doesn't believe that they could make any significant difference, because at face value they're just kids and orphans with big ideals but no idea of the reality, and he's only now realising just how tenacious they can be. 
> 
> Also, my headcanon is that Harrier and Starling have basically a sibling relationship, where they both can't stand each other and always go in for the easy jab/insult and spend basically all their time bantering, but they do deep down also respect each other, and they're still pretty close partially because they're one of the few people that survived what happened ten years ago. I just think that's a whole lot of fun that could be unpacked.
> 
> Anyways, hope it was a fun little read!
> 
> \-- Flo :))


End file.
